In the morning, Kate heard the water's rush, turning into a roar. Was a storm coming? Where was the avocado toast? The hammock below her was hard, and she opened her eyes to find she was in a canoe, not gently swaying but furiously dashing. She sat bolt upright.
She was rushing down a river in the canoe, bumping along the churning waves and narrowly missing a cropping of rocks. Then it got worse – she spied the end of a river coming fast, with spewing foam and curtains of mist that could only mean that a waterfall was waiting. And from the sound of the roar – a big one. Her stomach lurched and she looked about in total panic, as the relentless splashing of cold water soaked her head and shocked her fully awake.
Cassie breezed by in her canoe. "Wheee! I love a waterfall first thing in the morning. Better than caffeine!"
"What – are – you – DOING?!" Kate screamed. "We're about to go over the falls! Stop us!" Kate frantically tried to back pedal with her oars.
"Stop? Baby – you are about to BE the waterfall. Just relax. In fact – ditch the canoe and go commando." She dove into the white water and was spiraled down into the river.
Kate dropped the oar and clutched the sides of the canoe, white knuckled. As she approached the edge she tried not to panic – but she panicked, bellowing out her terror as the canoe spun over the edge and for one terrifying moment, she glimpsed the plunging falls below her before she became a part of them. It was a bit like the pause before you go over a roller coaster, that brief second where time seems to stand still and your heart pops out of your chest before you dive down to retrieve it at top speed.
And then – she fell. She plunged, she pounded, she splashed. The canoe disappeared and she felt the absolute power of the rushing water. She roared like a lion, she swirled in the pools at the fall's feet and gurgled happily away, then she felt her legs tangling up with Cassie's and fell into a fit of giggling. Cassie insisted they go back over three more times before they moved on with their day.
They followed the river to its end, lazily floating down the winding bends and napping on its shores. Kate failed to notice when the bruise faded from her arm, and indeed when her arms and legs and body faded entirely and she was just water. They spun in the river's eddies as it opened up into a bay and watched sheets of rain approaching across the wide water, the surface rippling in the distance. When the rains reached them they were swept up into the storm, feeling the might of the deluge pouring down and beating against the shoreline. They swelled into waves, crashing again and again against a lighthouse standing sentinel, and ruthlessly flooded any unprotected grounds they encountered.
Then they formed into a lake, wide and deep and calm. Their edges were inhabited by nesting birds and their depths by scores of fish. Water inhabited Kate's days and nights and dreams. She spent hours sitting cross legged on the muddy beds of lakes, rivers and seas, and drifting on their currents for days beside her lazy jellyfish friends that bathed in the balmy swells.
Then, the water grew colder and colder, and Kate and Cassie were on an ice flow, moving through lands that were white and still and pure with silence.
"Why am I not freezing?" Kate stretched on the ice in her body again, enjoying the corporeal feeling of being back in it, stretching out her back and legs and toes. But when she looked down, she saw she was cold, smooth ice – transparent and glittering, as if a sculpture carved from a block for a winter festival. She gasped and delighted in peering straight through her body to the clear sky beyond.
"Because ice does not feel cold," Cassie replied. "Ice is ice – perfect in its natural state. Snow does not feel cold; it feels complete in its crystalline formation and the earth is graced by its perfection. You don't feel cold – you feel balanced, you feel dimensional, you feel infinitesimal."
And with that Cassie grabbed a handful of snow and balled it up, throwing it at Kate, who reciprocated. A snowball fight later, the two playfully skated the frozen gulf, climbed icebergs, skied slopes, and swam icy waters with harbor seals, darting through like torpedoes. Kate laughed until her throat was raw; she couldn't remember when she had had so much fun.
In the evening, they watched the aurora borealis light up the sky, smearing it with an iridescent glow. They sipped hot cocoa and wore fur lined parkas and boots, back in their human form.
"So, if we're not cold – why are we wearing these furs?" Kate asked, sipping her drink.
"Because we look cute. And I like drinking cocoa. Wait till you see our Air BNB." Cassie flipped her curls.
They trekked on a dogsled through the night, the dog's sharp barks announcing their arrival. They pulled up to a palace carved of ice, complete with turrets and ramparts and endless staircases of diamond glinting ice and filled with icy furniture and cozy fur throws, lanterns lighting the entire fantastical scene and a roaring fire awaiting in the frozen hearth.
"A little homage to my mother lands," Cassie said, showing off her creation by growing a crystalline chandelier over their heads and lighting it with a thousand tiny flames. She passed Kate an ornate goblet and poured vodka for a toast to the beauty of their element, water, in all its forms.
"Vashe zdorov'ye!" Cassie cheered. "To your health."
"Will we sleep here?" Kate downed her shot.
"But of course. We will be as cozy as two bears hibernating in our cave. Ice mattresses are the best. Very firm."
"Ok Elsa. What's on the agenda for tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow? Girl – we still need to live through tonight!"
A polar bear butler ambled in then on his rear legs, wearing a bow tie and carrying a tray of caviar toast, hard boiled eggs and pelmeni, pastry dumplings filled with meat, along with raw oysters on the half shell and more delicacies. He roared out a greeting and Kate reached up on her tippy toes to reach his tray.
"Th-th-thank you," she stuttered out as he grunted out a reply.
They danced the Balalaika with the polar bear and his friends and many more vodka toasts later, Kate found herself on her ice mattress in her bedroom, beneath layers of blankets and before a window opening onto a stunning scene of snow filled wilderness. The wilderness seemed to be her future – what awaited her next? Was it dangerous or safe, what did it all mean, and what was going on back on Earth? Was Adam missing her... she was missing him, despite the fun and wonderment all around her.
She slept, her dreams filled with caviar, polar bears and dogsleds. She held breathlessly onto her sled as the huskies pulled relentlessly before her, steering her further and further into the wasteland awaiting. She thought she heard Adam's voice calling for her? She struggled to find him through the unending snow. Then, the flakes thinned and she felt a beam of warmth hitting her face.
Kate woke, the sun beaming down onto her face. She was sitting upright in a saddle. But she was not on a horse. She swayed with the moment as the beast she rode plodded forward. She was on a camel.
***
Photo by Sergey Pesterev on Unsplash
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An Unearthing of Goddesses
FantasyThere is a goddess within each of us - she just needs to be unearthed. And Kate McKinnon is about to discover hers... Overworked, underpaid, overlooked, slightly too curvy, slightly too introverted - Kate certainly never thought she was a goddess. B...
